Before you Resolve

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How are we feeling? It’s been a little since I’ve posted a proper piece of writing on Substack. I took some deliberate time off where I decided to store up my creative juices and do what I enjoy most: drinking heavily and watching sensory overload videos designed to give babies dopamine issues. I came out of this fugue state about two days ago, my nails long, my eyeballs on fire, and my brain completely depleted of any chemical that might cause a reaction that could be subjectively categorized as “joy.” After several IV drips and a journey to a faith healer who deemed me a “lost cause,” I thought it was time to pick myself up by the velcro straps of my light-up shoes and make a New Years resolution!

Now, from what I’ve seen from friends and family, New Year’s resolutions can generally be put into two categories: 1. Get jacked, and 2. Work more.

These categories I’ve constructed are more broad than they seem. Reading more is a form of getting jacked--mentally jacked. Journaling is a form of working more--emotionally working more. If you’ve decided to make a resolution along those lines, that’s great! Enjoy two months of journaling until you realise there is only so much you can write about your ex and only so much you can read about your ex’s narcissism before you’re writing detailed breakdowns of their attachment styles and showing up to their work trying to give them a surrealist painting that encapsulates their negative mental patterns. When the security guard is throwing you out, you can yell, with total certainty, “No! You don’t understand! They’re crazy!”

Once the restraining order is filed, you will need to find a more attainable goal like losing weight. But you’ll soon remember that big asses are in, and then you’ll change your goal to gaining weight, until you realize the importance of hip-to-waist ratio, at which point you will enter the quantum mechanics of modern exercise where you are simultaneously trying to gain and lose weight in a Schrodinger’s ass dilemma. Then you’ll give up on all that and decide “maybe I’m perfect just the way I am,” until next year, when you’ll wonder, “If I’m perfect, why do I spend so much time in the Hooters bathroom screaming?” at which point you’ll decide that what you need is another New Year’s resolution!

People will try everything from modern, scientifically-studied nootropics, to old-school, classic, tried-and-true nootropics (cocaine) to muster more willpower to follow through with their resolution. To get this Substack finished I took about two grams of pure Bolivian nootrophic straight to the dome. Here’s the issue: let’s say you stick to your goals. You lose weight, read more, and finally start using separate razors for your face and body--what then? While many people could benefit from eating healthier or learning more, I have found these resolutions are a roundabout means to get to a similar end: “I want to change the way the world relates to me.”

If you’re thinner, the world will greet you as a thin person. If you’re smarter, doors will open for you because you will be perceived as smarter. This makes a ton of sense, but as a person who willed myself into losing weight and gaining muscle in my early 20s, let me tell you--it doesn’t work as well as you think it will. Don’t get me wrong, it’s part of the puzzle, but people continue to have a huge blindspot in terms of resolutions that I’d like to discuss here. Instead of making resolutions that change you, how about making a resolution that changes your relationship with the world?

Personally, I never hear New Year’s resolutions along the lines of “I’d like to do more favors for my friends.” What the hell happened to favors, anyway? Try asking a friend to take you to the airport, and they go, “Ubers are cheap.” Yeah, you want to know why Ubers are cheap? Because they’re piloted by Bulgarian indentured servants. Now take me to LAX before I hire a robot to deliver an IED to your apartment. The economic environment is plunging us all into becoming self-centered automatons, ordering DoorDash while we complain that Netflix slop isn’t as good as the slop they used to make. I think the key to happiness is to break this cycle as much as possible, but there’s a problem--people have armored themselves in ‘self care’ to uphold their complicity in their own atomisation.

That’s right, some people are afraid to go against the term “self care” in its misused, mutated form we see today, but I will stare down that evil, demented teddy bear and hug it into submission. It would be insulting to your intelligence as a reader to go on about how I “don’t think taking care of yourself is a bad thing.” Obviously I don’t--you’re not a baby, let’s stop wasting time. Many deeply selfish people hide behind the idea of self care as an excuse for not being a member of society, and I’m over it. Helping other people, whether it’s by helping friends with a project or participating in outreach organizations, can be just as energizing as sitting in a bathtub filled with rose petals while you stare longingly at a picture of Paul Walker. Do both, find a balance. Do not go gently into that good night of solipsism and streaming services.

What people fail to realize is that building community is hard work, and therefore, in my opinion, should be prioritized in your resolution. Personally, I will be resolving to do more food sorting for an organization known as “Community Fridge,” as well as trying to get shredded. Community Fridge is awesome because you meet other people who sort food, while also doing something good for a cause bigger than yourself. Imagine how cool it will be when I’m doing all that while also being 10% body fat. Who can stop me then? No one, that’s who.

Your resolution doesn’t have to be as powerful or noble as mine. Make your resolution to go to the bar with friends once a week. At this point in society, that is a far more impressive task than journaling 200 pages a day. People get stuck in a self contained loop of self improvement, then feel hollow if and when their goals are completed. What I’m saying is: having abs is cool, but it’s even more cool to have friends around to tell you, “hey, put your shirt back on.”

Thank you for reading! Join the paid tier to read more, see me live, join my email list, and as always, have a good one!